He's a Fanboy?!

He Can Call Me 'Elle'

I fiddle with the corner of the calendar, folding and crumpling it over and over again in my fingers.

I cross out 'Sunday' of this week and almost break down in stress.

There's school tomorrow.

I stare at the week ahead of me. Each day shows test times and assignments due scribbled all over.

I can almost feel my binders and textbooks staring me down from the other side of my room, ready to drag down my shoulders and collapse on top of me the moment I put on my backpack.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but still.

I flop into bed like a fish, wondering how I will survive this week; how I will maintain my four-point-oh GPA.

The lights suddenly go off, as they always do at eleven pm at StarCross, so I turn my lamp on and open up my laptop, checking new comments and messages on Wattpad.

As my eyes grow tired and my head starts to nod off, I close my laptop and turn off the lamp. I lucid dream of flying and escape--the usual.

When I wake up, six am on Monday morning, the only motivation I have to get up is knowing that I will be at the library at lunch.

__________________________

With my feet I drag two chairs together to emulate a bed, closing my eyes and flopping onto it. Brayden enters the library momentarily, mirroring my mood and actions.

"Can I join you?" he asks.

My face buried in the chair cushion, I mumble, "It's a bit too early in our relationship to be sleeping with each other, sorry."

Used to my antics by now, he simply scoffs and drops into a chair across from me.

"There is a book in my bag that is screaming at me to read it--," he starts.

"--but you can't because we have two million different projects and eight billion different tests this week," I finish.

"That's an understatement."

Both of us take out our laptops and textbooks simultaneously, and soon the only sounds that can be heard are two different rhythms of typing along with annoyed teenage grunts and sighs.

As time goes on, my senses seem to become detached from my work; my fingers and brain continuing to talk about the influences of Chinese culture but my heart and senses wandering the library.

It seems as though everything I hear, every wave that passes through my ears is amplified. It comes to mind that I could compare this moment to a Youtube video: The sound of our fingers tapping the keyboard, continously creating more words for others to take in later. Our peaceful and calm breathing the background music that relaxes you and fills in the spaces when there are no words. And the rest: Silence, which is perhaps the most deafening sound in the world.

I lean back in my chair, pausing to glance at the time. Since the lunch bell, ten minutes have passed. I don't know whether to think that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Brayden pushes his laptop slightly to the left and pokes his head around mine. "It's been ten minutes. I'm bored."

I give him a look, as if to say, 'What am I supposed to do about that?'

He sighs and goes back to work when I do, but the boredom soon gets to me, too. I take a look at Brayden, contemplating whether he would declare me 'lame' or not if I asked.

I find myself asking anyway: "Wanna play 21 questions?"

His head snaps up immediately. "Hell yeah." So it isn't lame, I think to myself. Good to know.